Question Why some novel have racism?

I don't deny these things, but its a pain to read about these things in fantasy settings especially when wilfully denying/ignoring one side with no consideration to logic/plot/internal consistency

 

I'm not particularly bothered by racism but I hate how it affects the story. It automatically makes x race a horrific stereotype that whilst to incompantant to even tie their shoes they somehow have numbers out of nowhere. The worst is when they pack heavy racism with extreme nationalism and sometimes a person nationaliality will randomly change such as a German becoming chinese or a chinese turning japanese.

 

It is rarer than you think.
Portuguese and Italian are not two races.
My point still stands, I did say favorite too.
Unless you have close relationships with people from multiple races it's very hard.
Second generations don't count either. As Chinese born in the US don't think the same as Chinese born in mainland China.

Cheers!.


P.S. I do have to correct myself, I mixed up Hispanic with Latino.
I was referring to Latino.
These are the major races off the top of my head

Europeans/North Americans
Latinos
Asian
Africans
Endangered Aborigines like Uyghurs that are too unique to be considered part of a major race. Native Americans, and Natives of Oceanic countries like Australia and New Zealand might qualify

Of course, this is not an academic categorization just my own personal classification

 

Because WWII Happened and there is too much patriotism.

 

It's exactly this. A certain level of racism is understandable (even if not liked) because everyone has atleast a bit of prejudice but the over the top nature in these novels just ruins the immersion and plot.

If it was just nationalism I can just ignore it, but its always the case of beating down others to make yourself look better by comparison instead of just making yourself better. Its just a mixture or laziness and incompetance. The fact that a significant amount of racism is a 'given' in most novels shows that there is problem.

 

i'm trying to keep it down on the wall text so, some novels have racism, because the world have racism, and novels like any other medium needs to reflect someway the world we live in to have that connection.
so even if you are racist or not, does not mean that the world is not.

of course, in my particular opinion the biggest form of ***ism in the world is called Moneyism, that is the prejudice born from the difference between rich and poor, this is by far the biggest ism we have in total society, hell even when a racist or a nor racist thinks about being some act that can be referenced as "racist" 99,99% of the times there is someway linked to the financial capacities of the target.


(well i tried to create a new word,Moneyism,to become cool but i think i failed .)

 

I Think Japanese were way worse than nazi's

 

Let me find my pocket nuke. The scene needs to be sanitized or it might spread

 

"Just wiping out two cities." Kek. You wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a nuked and a conventionally bombed city. The difference is next to zero, really. The japanese owe the US big time for what happened afterwards, else they would hate them a fucking lot. Japan also had multiple class A war criminals in its first post war government. Guess why.

So much stupidity and ignorance in this one post I don't even know what to adress first.

Oh ye, the massacre. Lets do that. You KIIIIINDA forgot mentioning fun stuff like mass rape and chopping off children heads for sports. You know, just your average entertainment. Mass rape and calling the victims comfort women to this day ain't exactly the best stuff either. If it had only been a "normal" massacre and japan apologized later on the salt wouldnt be nearly this bad.

Censorship... wtf mate. ESPECIALLY in this trollfest of a forum you should know better. The chinese do it regularly on a scale and with an intensity far beyond even the worst censorship the west ever did. Buy yourself some tinfoil and make a hat out of it. You are in dire need of one.

 

Because some author have racism.

 

I think I've seen this thread several times... Its latest iteration was:
https://forum.novelupdates.com/threads/why-do-writers-love-sucking-their-own-countrys.99619

 

Ths fuck did you made me read?
Where is my damn alcohol, I need to disinfect to protect myself.

 

That's what happened when you create a story with people of ethnicity as characters, try read book for cats.
Although racism is kind of inevitable when you create a story since they (authors) are building a world, they need it to have some realism for the readers to relate and feel it.
The japs have done this a lot in their LNs, demi-humans enslaved by humans as a common sense or vice versa? that's racism, having different coloured eyes and being shunned by everyone ? that's racism, there's a lot example out there, and my point is don't fret about it too much, they are there because the author thought it was the right way to develop his/her story, if you don't like it then don't read it.
And from political standpoint, if it's chinese novel it was kind of expected because censorship, i think there was a chinese author that got arrested because he/she question the chinese government in his/her novel, and patriotism is also a mandatory in every country which leads to some part of history not being told and they only told the kids the good deeds their ancestors did,.

 

see fam, thats the thing. You ARENT reading about chinese hatred. You are reading about the hatred between, say, elves and dark elves. Or dwarves and orcs. Or whatever.

Do they represent real life factions? Maybe. So? The fuck is the difference between that and other racism and hatred between in-story nations? Maybe the author is a racist little shit. Maybe not. Maybe its just how the story is. We cant normally tell unless the author specifically says, "im making this story to represent these factions and im biased as fuck against one so im gonna bash them and portray them as evil disgusting bastards that have to be wiped out" Only then can we really be sure.

I think the reason im fine with heavy racism, geopolitics and patriotism in novels is because i dont really think about the real world at all when i read it. i just take it as part of the character's traits or the story's setting. Thats all i look at, the story. I dont think about or care what one faction might represent in real life. Why should it matter? OEM? MC was hardcore racist. MKay. Cool. Thats part of his character. I dont see how any of that would have stopped me from enjoying interactions with sexy harem candidates. The demons were stand ins for the japs? Alright, but are the demons kill happy savages? If so, go ahead and kill em.

Geopolitics is gonna be part of a lot of stories. Whether they represent real life nations or not shouldnt matter. If its in the story, its part of the story.

 

We tend to see the worst in countries, so sometimes we can all be a bit racist. Even if it's just a tiny bit, it's still there.

 

I tried speeding through rebirth of the urban immortal from webnovels in mtl and I can tell you that the nationality ruins it. I wanted to rush through all the shitty repeat fights where somehow a level of power which was supposed to be rare somehow turns out that there are thousands of them meandering about in a reincarnation novel is already shitty writing I thought maybe when they get into space the writing will turn much better since it's pretty much a fresh start. Nope the second that the mc goes into outer space and save someone they say wow you are chinese. I had to instantly drop it and actively block. I would've even accepted if they said Asian descent but how am I suppose to believe that a alien culture can more accurately tell a persons ethnicity upon meeting them for the first time. If they are from a random low cultivation planet

 

So to summarize the popular racist ‘trends’ in most novels. The Americans are always the annoying superpowers nobody really hates or likes. Koreans don’t like the Japanese and sometimes the Chinese as well. They’ll be more subtle about it, so they’d put the Japanese in an unfavorable position as either the victim or the villain. The Japanese will generally mind their own business but when they do decide to be racist the first victims are often the Chinese followed by the Koreans if necessary. Still relatively rare for racism on the Japanese’s side. On the other hand, you aren’t a Chinese novel if you don’t have a hint of racism in your novel. If you’re already a hundred chapters in and you’ve found none so far, read another hundred chapters and at some point there should be a racist reference to the Japanese almost as if it’s required by law to include it. This doesn’t matter if you’re in a fantasy cultivation world completely separate from Earth (Otherworldly Evil Monarch). Their main target is ofc the Japanese and sometimes the Koreans. Unlike the others however, the Chinese will occasionally include every other race and/or country into their list of victims to be the target of their racist insults. And to elaborate on the insults, they’re completely different from both the Japanese and the Koreans as they’ll outright throw out insults (i.e. Japanese pigs, left/right wing or whatever inappropriate insults they can come up with). If you wish to see a prime example of racism you can give God and Devil World a try.

Regarding patriotism on the other hand, the Japanese would often talk about how good their food is... like miso and rice and stuff. Because apparently that’s what best represents Japan. I mean in every isekai ever that’s what all the MCs would go on rattling about for several chapters. For the Koreans, they might occasionally talk about how every man should serve in the army, you should repay the country, or patriotism good. But at the very least they also complain about being forced to serve the military as tiring and never wanting to do that again (author’s grudge?). Also the MCs would often ignore the patriotism and act selfishly. The Chinese would often reference how great the country is, patriotism good, it’s an honor to serve the country. They’ll be more open with their patriotism than the Japanese and Koreans, who might sometimes be a bit indirect in the way they praise their own country.

This is all based entirely on my experience of reading novels everyday on this platform for the past 5~years(?) but I’m selective with what genre I read so there might be some bias there so do take that into consideration.
Hope any of this helped or was relatable for some people hahah.

 

You’ve completely ignored the spirit of what I’ve written. Shoe horning in real life racism when there is no need is bad m’kay? Not just morally, but as bad plot device. It ruins any immersion. If I wanted to read authorial geopolitical opinion, I wouldn’t read fiction. That is my problem. None of thier plots need racism. It’s almost never believable. Racist elves/dwarves against other races in story, in world etc I don’t care since it’s a believable part of the world. If there is racism at least an attempt at it being justifiable would make most of my problems disappear.

 

Firstly, you might be a right, although i do believe you're a bit too strict...

secondly, all of those are one race, the human race. All a bit different due to different environments, but still all part of 1 race.
A big part of the problem with racism is that it is made easier because of thinking "they're not like us" see, people divide each other in groups, and then they, of course, want to belong to the "best" group. How to achieve this? hard work? improvement? nah, too difficult, let's just put down other groups, or straight-up murder them. they're not "like us" anyway, so it doesn't count as evil.

This is because humans are territorial pack animals. Whethr that territory is a country, a religion, a color, or an idea, we are wired to react aggressively to intruders. of course, we have the benefit of having the ability to think and make conscious decisions, but sadly, humans rarely do so.

there's other reasons, of course, as i have expanded upon in an earlier comment, but racism is no more than a sign of weakness. whether it is weakness of needing something to blame, or weakness of not even having as much control over your instincts as a dog, or probably a few others, it is in the end, weakness.

the fact that so many people succumb to it makes our whole race seem quite pathetic, in my opinion.
our human race.

 

I agree but I am looking at it from another perspective.
I wasn't clear enough.
I believe even good people are subconsciously racist.
It does not apply to only overt racism.
Covid 19 is a perfect example, even people whom you can consider to be boy's scouts do racist things

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/51652439